Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty facts for kids
William Francis Brinsley Le Poer Trench (18 September 1911 – 18 May 1995) was a famous UFO expert. He was an Irish peer, which means he held a special title in Ireland. He was also a nobleman in the Dutch nobility.
Life and Work
Brinsley Le Poer Trench was the fifth son of William Frederick Le Poer Trench, the 5th Earl of Clancarty. He went to school at the Pangbourne Nautical College.
From 1956 to 1959, Brinsley edited a magazine called Flying Saucer Review. He also started a group called the International Unidentified Object Observer Corps. He worked selling ads for a gardening magazine near Waterloo station in London.
In 1967, he created Contact International and was its first president. He also helped lead the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA). Brinsley was a special member of the Ancient Astronauts Society. This group believed in ideas from Erich von Däniken's book, Chariots of the Gods?. These ideas suggested that aliens visited Earth long ago.
In 1975, Brinsley became the Earl of Clancarty after his half-brother passed away. This gave him a seat in the British Parliament. He used his position to start a UFO Study Group in the House of Lords. He even put Flying Saucer Review in their library. He also pushed for the government to release secret UFO information.
Four years later, he organized a big discussion about UFOs in the House of Lords. Many people spoke about the topic. During one debate, Lord Strabolgi, who represented the government, said there was no proof that alien spacecraft had ever visited Earth.
Personal Life
Brinsley Le Poer Trench was married four times. His first marriage was in 1940 to Diana. This marriage ended in 1947. He married Wilma Belknap in 1961, and that marriage ended in 1969. His third marriage was in 1974 to Mildred Allewyn Spong. She passed away in 1975. He married a fourth time in 1976 to May Beasley.
He lived most of his life in South Kensington. He passed away in Bexhill-on-Sea in 1995. He left his large collection of papers to Contact International.
His nephew, Nicholas Le Poer Trench, became the next Earl.
Hollow Earth Theory
In 1974, Brinsley Trench wrote a book called Secret of the Ages: UFOs from Inside the Earth. In this book, he shared his idea that the Earth's center was hollow. He believed there were entrances to this inside world at the North and South Poles. He thought the inside of the Earth had huge tunnels and a large world of caverns. Trench also believed that the lost continent of Atlantis really existed. He thought the Atlanteans might have built these tunnels all over the world.
Trench believed there was no real North Pole. Instead, he thought there was a large area with a warm sea that went gradually into the Earth's inside. He said humans were "living on the deck of a ship, unaware of the life going on under our feet." One reason he believed this was that the Earth is round but flat at the poles. He also wondered how all icebergs could be made of fresh water if no rivers flowed from inside the Earth.
He also thought that many unidentified flying objects (UFOs) came from inside the Earth. He believed these UFOs were made by very advanced beings. These beings were similar to humans but might have had special mind powers. Another reason he supported the Hollow Earth theory was that he thought everything in space, like nebulae, comets, and planets, is hollow. He felt these conditions would be good for a hollow Earth.
Trench had once not believed in the Hollow Earth theory. But he later said he had been taught, like millions of others, that the Earth had a melted core.
Other Interesting Claims
In his book The Sky People, Brinsley Trench claimed that Adam and Eve, Noah, and other characters from the Bible first lived on Mars. Trench believed that Adam and Eve were created by extraterrestrials as an experiment. He said the Bible's description of the Garden of Eden did not match Earth. Since Mars had canals, he thought the Garden of Eden must have been on Mars. He also claimed that the ice cap on Mars's north pole melted. This caused Adam and Eve's descendants to move to Earth.
Trench also said he knew a former U.S. test pilot. This pilot supposedly said he was one of six people at a meeting between President Eisenhower and a group of aliens. This meeting was said to have happened at Edwards Air Force Base on April 4, 1954. Brinsley reported that the pilot told him, "Five different alien craft landed at the base. Three were saucer-shaped and two were cigar shaped... the aliens looked something like humans, but not exactly."
He even claimed that his own family history went back to 63,000 BC. He said that beings from other planets landed on Earth in spaceships at that time.
